digifabshop A Letter From John Our 2015 German technology tour this year was an incredibly inspiring and insightful look into what Digifabshop could be in the future. Though our trip was based around LIGNA, the world's leading trade fair for the woodworking industry, we also visited a 200 year old shipyard that now makes some of the worlds largest cruise ships, an all glass automotive factory in the middle of a city, and a show house village with prefabricated homes by some of Europe's leading builders. Our focus was on digital fabrication in architecture, but it was really amazing to see such a cross section of industries and how people and materials and machines all come together to make completely different things. LIGNA, in Hannover, is huge; over 1500 exhibitors, 1.3 million square feet of display space, and 100,000 attendees. The halls were filled with machinery, software, and material vendors specializing in forestry, wood based energy, sawmill technology, panel and veneer production, solid wood working and furniture manufacturing. Our machinery vendor of choice, Homag, and their US subsidiary Stiles, occupied half of an entire hall and had their most cutting edge CNC machining centers, edgebanders, beam saws, wide belt sanders, and material handling systems on display. With companies like Minda, Stora Enso, Hundegger, and Weinmann, our biggest takeaway was how ripe for re-thinking and modernization timber construction is in the United States.
DISPATCH MAY
005 2015
May's Employee of The Month is Ben Rauch.
In The Works
ships, but our real interest was in their cruise ship construction. Through computer aided design, precisely maintained scheduling, and pre-fab construction, they can make a 1000' long, 2100 cabin boat in just 18 months. They build entire steel floor plates upside down, stack them, and then flip the entire assembly. Their pre-fabrication division completes a room cabin every eighteen minutes, and a bathroom every 11 minutes, and then they are inserted into the sides of the ships. Wow! Volkswagen's Die Gl채serne Manufaktur, or transparent factory, is in the middle of the city of Dresden. Car bodies are moved and placed via digitally controlled overhead gantries, stocked part stations are picked up and moved via robotic platforms, tool carts are movable anywhere with induction power through the floor, and the entire assembly sequence takes place on a moving conveyor. Best of all, the floors are all maple. And, lastly, FertighausWelt Hannover was a collection of pre-fabricated houses by 17 different manufacturers, all on display in a neighborhood setting for potential homeowners to compare, contrast, and learn about what makes them different. With predictable costs, increased precision, increased speed of erection, and highly coordinated energy efficiency efforts, this focus on pre-fabricated timber buildings is pretty compelling. We have plenty of photos to share!
Meyer Werft, in Papenburg, was founded in 1795 and is one of the major shipyards in the world. They began making wooden boats, they were pioneers in the move to steel hulls, they now make river boats, ferries, tankers, and container
01 - COMPANY KNOWLEDGE BASE
EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH
Ben has brought a greatly needed skill set to Digifabshop. His wood turning skills and sculpting abilities have helped us produce some amazing work. Through his vast knowledge of wood and its characteristics and properties, he has given us some great advice for our use of it in projects. He has a keen eye to detect flaws - like hairline cracks - that others don't catch. Although Ben can be very quiet, he has a great awareness of what is going on around him and will step in immediately when he sees that someone needs help. He plans his time well to accomplish the tasks assigned to him and he is passionate about making a good product. With the amount of work flowing through the Cabinetry department this month, Ben has been invaluable in getting completed projects out the door - especially with Cava.
Have a question about Digifabshop and don't know where to find the answer? From light switch locations to Chipotle handle quality control, our new knowledge database through "Confluence" will bundle all of this necessary information into one neat package - all available online. This powerful system is already allowing collaboration at 13,200 companies around the world including Facebook, Skype, Microsoft, Netflix and Linkedin and we are really excited to be on that list!
Thank you Ben for the great work you do for us and for being here every day to do it. You have given Digifabshop an added dimension of craftsmanship and skill..
The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible - Sophie Lovell Dieter Rams' life and work are indelibly linked to his thought about how people live, and how they can live better. Products he designed in the 1960's are still being produced today.
02 - UPCOMING PROJECTS
UPDATE: Aventura Mall We have seen seven of these Corian beauties go through our shop over the past few months and are now able to see them in their final resting place. Among a few other projects that are coming into the shop is Mashburn, a boutique clothing company that has set a precedent for displaying their clothing in high-quality retail environments. The store is separated into two distinct brands: "Sid" Mashburn for the men's line and "Ann" Mashburn for the women's line, but here in the shop we will keep the name simple: "Mashburn".
Equipped with two seventy-inch LCD displays, CPU's, speakers and webcams, they will function as fully interactive displays at each of the seven locations throughout the mall. While the outer appearance of the displays have a relatively simple design gesture, the inner workings are a highly complicated coordination of structural frame, equipment mounts and A/V accomodation. They even have their own integrated fan for ventilation and cooling!
Iron Nines
This project was a great opportunity for our shop to further our abilities with Corian and learn all of the tricks that come along with it. We have always worked with this material in the shop, but have rarely experimented with a lamination of this calliber. Many of our cabinet makers were given the opportunity to refine their skills specific to this material and we were able to tune in some of our CNC machines for optimal cut edge quality.
It's Springtime and many of our fellow Digifab employees are uniting to form the "Iron Nine's", a force to be reckoned with in the 2015 Hudson Valley Men's softball league. Over the past few weeks team members have been hitting the batting cages, practicing together and scrimmaging other teams in preparation for the season. The first game is set for Sunday May 17 @ 2PM against the VIP Vipers. If you are not playing, make sure to attend to root on your coworkers and friends. Seen to the left, our very own Kevin Leader is at plate (trying hard not to break Greg's bat) in their first scrimmage against last year's returning champions. Interested in throwing around the ball at a practice or being a substitute on the team? Talk to Greg for more information.
DISPATCH 005: MAY 2015
Sony Design: Making Modern - Deyan Sudjic A book dedicated to the innovative designs of Sony, a trailblazer in personal electronics and pioneer of the highly successful WALKMAN, Handycam and other portable electronics.
Birthdays JIM POMEROY JIM KIDD
DISPATCH 005: MAY 2015
One Year Anniversaries MAY 2ND MAY 29TH
PIPER OLF LINC HARRIS
MAY 13TH MAY 29TH